. 65th Congress I SENATE /Document 

Special Session \ » -ii - \ No. 1 

E 766 

^"^^ INAUGURAL ADDRESS 

Copy 1 

OF 

VICE PRESIDENT 
THOMAS R. MARSHALL 



V 



ADDRESS OF THE 
VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES 

DELIVERED AT THE INAUGURAL CEREiMONIES 

HELD IN THE SENATE OF THE 

UNITED STATES ON 

MARCH 5, 1917 




j-]^^^ (^ l^^ ( 



WASHINGTON • 

GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 
1917 






SENATE RESOLUTION NO. 4. 

By Mr. Flktcher. 



Ix THE Senate of the United States, 

March 6, 1917. 

Resolved.) That the address of the Vice President, delivered March 
5, 1917, be printed as a Senate document, and that 10,000 additional 
copies be printed for the use of the Senate document room. 
Attest : 

James M. Baker, 

Secretary. 



D. of D. 

MAY 25 1917 



v^ 



ADDRESS. 



Senators: Custom calls for the utterance of a few words upon 
this occasion; otherwise, I would gladly remain silent. It may not 
be inappropriate to express my gratitude for the little nameless, 
unnumbered, and ofttimes unremembered acts of courtesy and 
charity shown to me by the Members of this body during the last 
four 3'ears; to express my regret over the vanishing faces of those 
Avho are leaving and to welcome those who in a few moments are to 
become our coworkers in the cause of constitutional freedom. 

Everywhere in America are clamant and strident voices proclaim- 
ing the essential elements of patriotism. He who seeks out of them 
all to select one clear note of love for country may fail. I conceive 
it to be far more important to examine myself than to cross-examine 
another. May I make bold to insert in the Record some elements of 
the creed which I have adopted in this period of retrospection and 
introspection? It does not embrace what I know but holds part of 
what I believe. 

I have faith that this Government of ours was divinely ordained 
to disclose whether men are by nature fitted or can by education be 
made fit for self-government; to teach Jew and Greek, bondman 
and free, alike, the essential equality of all men before the law and 
to be tender and true to humanity everywhere and under all cir- 
cumstances; to reveal that service is the highest reward of life. I 
can not believe otherwise when I read the words and recall the 
sacrifices of the fathers. If ours is not the golden rule of govern- 
ment, then Washington wrought and Lincoln died in vain. 

I believe that the world, now advancing and now retreating, is 
nevertheless moving forward to a far-off divine event wherein the 
tongues of Babel will again be blended in the language of a com- 
mon brotherhood ; and I believe that I can reach the highest ideal 
of my tradition and my lineage as an American— as a man, as a citizen, 
and as a public official— when I judge my fellow men without malice 
and with charity, when I worry more about my own motives and con- 
duct and less about the motives and conduct of others. The time I 
am liable to be wholly wrong is when I loiow that I am absolutely 
right. In an individualistic Republic I am the unit of patriotism, 

84227°— 17 3 



4 INAUGURAL ADDRESS OF VICE PRESIDENT MARSHALL. 

and if I keep myself keyed in unison with the music of the Union my 
fellow men will catch the note and fall into time and step. 

I believe there is no finer form of government than the one under 
which we live, and that I ought to be Avilling to live or to die, as God 
decrees, that it may not perish from off the earth through treachery 
within or through assault from without; and I believe that though 
my first right is to be a partisan, my fii'st duty, when the only prin- 
ciples on which free government can rest are being strained, is to be 
a patriot and to follow in a wilderness of words that clear call which 
bids me guard and defend the ark of our national covenant. 

o 



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